Members of the Campus Culture Task Force Committee will meet for a second time this Friday to discuss preliminary reccomendations about how to improve the campus atmosphere regarding diversity.

Chancellor James Oblinger created the task force in November 2008 following the hate speech and racist messages written on the Free Expression Tunnel about President-elect Barack Obama.

Student Body President Jay Dawkins said the work of the committee is important for the culture on campus to improve.

“We learned that there are a lot of campuses that have similar issues and fight similar battles,” Dawkins said of the initial work of the committee.

The messages threatening Obama prompted the U.S. Secret Service to investigate to determine if any credible threat had been made.

While no students faced criminal charges, the University did discipline the four students who took responsibility for painting the tunnel.

Dawkins said the issue of free speech is difficult to deal with despite the threatening nature of messages like those found Nov. 5, 2008.

“There are some things we can do to discourage people from doing things that are completely irrational but to a certain extent free speech is free speech,” he said. “Sometimes free speech includes stupid speech.”

Since the creation of the task force, members have been meeting in subcommittees focused on three separate areas: campus culture, the student conduct code and Brickyard and Free Expression Tunnel Practices.

Dawkins, who serves on the Brickyard and Free Expression Tunnel subcommittee, said his particular subcommittee has a difficult task.

“There is so much tradition and history in the Free Expression tunnel as it is,” he said. “If one were to try to change the nature of the Free Expression Tunnel it would face resistance but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to better approach a controversial issue.”

On Friday, the entire task force will meet to dicsuss the initial reccomendations of the smaller groups.

“On Friday, the subcommittees will present initial findings to the full committee and we’ll have a chance to discuss them,” Dawkins said.

Dawkins said he believes the Free Expression Tunnel incident in November provides an opportunity for the campus to talk about sensitive issues like race.

“In a lot of ways speech in the way we saw it Nov. 5 can awaken society to issues that still exist that need to be addressed,” he said.